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Thursday, May 29, 2008

Samsung F480 - Samsung has announced their latest touch screen mobile phone the F480. Samsung announced that it is HSDPA phone that comes with 5.0-megapixel camera with face detection technology and a image stabilizer and an intoxicating menu of widgets display functions such as the clock, radio player, music player and more than enough to tantalize the most hardcore gadget aficionado.

Some of the most enhanced personal elements include photos and birthday reminders. It also has a drag and drop feature that most should be accustomed to. You will have unhindered access to all your favorite applications with a touch. The Samsung F480 will be at retail locations in June.

Monday, May 26, 2008

While we’re hot after this 256GB solid-state drive (SSD) by Samsung, the hotness factor of this drive is the blistering speed. This 4-inch-long drive zipping through read times of 200MB per second, thats a lot faster than most spinning drives. Samsung says this 2.5-inch drive will be in retail locations by the end of this year. No pricing has been released.Device had a lot to say on this subject as quoted here. While SSDs have their profound advantages, that price problem puts a damper on our enthusiasm. To give you an idea of the out-of-reach cost of this upcoming drive, the first laptop packing an SSD drive with half that capacity, the 128GB Toshiba Dynabook SS RX1, costs $4000. By comparison, we saw a conventional 256GB portable drive at Best Buy yesterday for $89. So consider this Samsung SSD a peek into the future, when economies of scale might bring the price of these babies down to earth in a couple of years.

Saturday, May 24, 2008

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (Darpa) wants to build an engine that can go from zero to over four times the speed of sound as part of a new effort called VULCAN. Darpa says the VULCAN program will "design, build and ground test an engine capable of accelerating a full scale hypersonic vehicle from rest to Mach 4+."

Darpa and the Air Force are working on a number of hypersonic vehicle projects at the moment, ranging from the notional Blackswift aircraft to the X-51 Waverider. VULCAN, however, appears to take a different approach. "A key objective of the program is to integrate the turbine engine into the VULCAN engine with minimal modification to the turbine engine, to operate the turbine engine from rest to its upper Mach limit and to cocoon the turbine engine when it is not in use," the announcement says. "It desired that both the turbine and the CVC engines share a common inlet and nozzle."

So, what's the final goal? "It is envisioned that developing the VULCAN engine will enable full scale hypersonic cruise vehicles for intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance, strike or other critical national missions," says Darpa.

Wednesday, May 21, 2008

The Marion Hyper-Sub is a true submersible powerboat, an innovation of new vessel flexible design. This powerboat / submarine has the ability to skim across the surface at exhilarating speeds. The MarionHyper-Sub is the first small craft built with the horsepower and range to allow operation on-top of the high seas. The MarionHyper-Sub also functions as a self-charging, autonomous, one-atmosphere submarine.

The patented design, which was 31 years in the making, will forever enhance the mini-sub industry. The worlds first true general-purpose submarine.

The Marion Hyper-Sub sports such safety features as an pressurized passenger compartment is accessed through a top hatch, which is four feet above water level reducing the chance of the craft being swamped in rough weather. With the hatch closed in a storm, the Hyper-Sub is actually safer than a boat. It can even right itself if inverted. The compartmentalized ballast system has such a high lifting capacity that the Hyper-Sub can suffer a 12 ton loss of buoyancy before losing its ability to surface. That means you will always make it to the top!

Monday, May 19, 2008

JVC has announced the development of its latest projector chip, offering more than 17 times the resolution of current Full HD systems, and forming the final link in the Super Hi-Vision broadcast - viewing chain.

The 1.75in 8K4K D-ILA chip has laid claim to be the world's first single display device able to handle Super Hi-Vision. It offers a resolution of 35 megapixels – 8192x4320 pixels, against 1920x1080 for current HD TV systems – meaning the 7680x4320-pixel resolution of Super Hi-Vision is well within its capabilities.

The new system is four times the resolution of the 4K2K digital cinema standard already available in JVC's DLA-SH4K pro-use projector.

As well as being used for Super Hi-Vision, JVC says the chip will play a part in the development of what the company calls "the ultimate in imaging technology: ultra-realistic 3D displays."

Zeno is a robot that can see faces and make eye contact, and learn your face and how to call you by name. Zeno has a camera in one of its eyes and on-board speech recognition. It is also wirelessly connected to the network so it can take advantage of what the makers claim are the best speech-recognition algorithms in the world. See the video below.

Thursday, May 15, 2008

Possibly the first practical model of a time machine proposed by Professor Amos Ori from the Technion Israel Institute of Technology, may prove to be the first step towards a construction of a mechanism that will allow time travel into the past.

General relativity theoretically allows the existence of Closed Timelike Curves. This space time curving, if successfully created, seems to permit traveling back in time. The question remains if this unique curving is actually allowed according to the laws of nature in our universe, and if it is possible to create such curving artificially – thereby "building" a time machine.

One of the claims against the possibility of building a time machine is that a negative density material was needed for the creation of the machine. However, Professor Ori proposed a model in which such material is not needed. The time machine is actually only made of vacuum and dust! (One should keep in made that the terminology "machine" might be misleading, as there is no machinery involved in this model. It is actually a theoretical configuration of space-time that could allow travel back in time).

According to the model, traveling back in time may only be accomplished to a point in time which is later than the construction of the machine. In other words, if we were able to prepare such a space-time curvature mechanism today, our future selves wouldn't be able to go back and visit the dinosaurs, kill Hitler or stop 9/11. However, even this restriction doesn't prevent many of the philosophical difficulties associated with time travel.

Sunday, May 11, 2008

Data theft and introduction of viruses is a prime concern for mobile workers. The USB Port Blocker prevents data thieves from plugging in USB devices to grab your precious data or injecting malware when you’re not looking. So, if you must leave your computer unattended for a brief period of time (or if you’re the type that gets so absorbed with work that you don’t notice your surroundings), this is a nifty device to help you physically block points of entry into your laptop.

I think this is a great Idea for the office and home computers- Not just only for your laptop..

Saturday, May 10, 2008

Three test flights took place in February and March 2008 at the airfield in Ocana, south of Madrid, Spain. During the test flights, a two-seat Dimona motor-glider with a 16.3 meter wingspan was used as the airframe. Built by Diamond Aircraft Industries of Austria, it was modified by BR&TE to include a proton exchange membrane (PEM) fuel cell/lithium-ion battery hybrid system to power an electric motor coupled to a conventional propeller.

During the flights, the pilot of the experimental airplane climbed to an altitude of 1,000 meters above sea level using a combination of battery power and power generated by hydrogen fuel cells. After reaching the cruise altitude and disconnecting the batteries, the pilot flew straight and level at a cruising speed of 100 kilometers per hour for approximately 20 minutes solely on power generated by the fuel cells. Although the takeoff required the use of a regular engine, it is still considered by many in the industry as a remarkable feat.

Friday, May 09, 2008

Taipei (Taiwan) - The vision of upgradeable graphic cards goes back to the late 1990s, when Micron Technology was experimenting with removable sockets. In 2006, both MSI and Gigabyte showcased upgradeable graphic cards, but their concepts, which were based on GeForce Go MXM boards, never took off. Earlier this year, Asus introduced a single board with three MXM slots for ATI Mobility Radeon 3850 or 3870 cards (upgradeable with future parts), and has now unveiled its single-MXM product.

The Product is called Splendid HD 3850M, this card doesn’t look like anything special, until you remove the dual-slot cooler. What you can see then is a MXM card with a RV670 chip and 512 MB of memory attached to the PCB that contains the Splendid HD video processor: The video processor features 12-bit gamma correction, 7-region color enhancement and dynamic contrast engine.

Saturday, May 03, 2008

The U.S. National Institute of Standards and Technology have been developing "and licensing" technologies that can help bring an affordable graphic reading system for the blind. The systems bring electronic images to life in the same way that Braille makes words readable.

The display uses close to 3,561 small pins that are known as actuator points – that can be raised in any pattern displayed on screen, then locked into place for reading. The points can then be withdrawn and reset in a new pattern, allowing the blind or visually disabled to "see" a variety of images. Each image is sent electronically to the device, that uses software to determine how to create a tactile display that matches the image.

A very rare parasitic plant that was first discovered in Mexico in 1985 has been rediscovered.

George Yatskievych of the Missouri Botanical Garden, Says the odd plant, that is unable to photosynthesize, is an completly new species and is a member of the Orobanchaceae family. Here is the interesting part, Plants of this type attach themselves to the roots of other plants to survive.

Dr. Yatskievych plans to publish his research later this year and will propose calling the plant Eremitilla Mexicana, which means "little hermit of Mexico."

My random thought: I think its pretty interesting new species of plants are emerging, however I really hope a lot of these don't start popping up all over the world.